I have always lived my life around a simple principle, “Don’t eat weird stuff.” And see? I was right. The Coronavirus ripping through the Wuhan region of Red China – and that has now spread here – may well have crossed over to our species because some people in China eat bats. Yeah, on purpose. How the hell did they ever get the idea that dining on Dracula birds was a good plan?
It doesn’t matter – what does is our response, and right now the Administration is behind the power curve. With attention fixed on the circle of self-abuse that is the impeachment, it’s difficult to get a grip on this extremely dangerous situation. But the White House must do so, and fast.
I am not qualified to talk in detail about the proper strategies and tactics of responding to the virus’s spread into our country – I did nuclear, chemical, and biological stuff in the Army, but this is outside my skill set. Luckily, we have scientists who know how. What I do know is a little bit about communicating and leading, and a lot about disaster response, including commanding in the midst of civil crises. And the Administration risks dropping the ball.
This could be Trump’s Katrina, as Hugh Hewitt, who was way ahead of everyone else in the media on this potential nightmare, has pointed out. Understand this, and you probably don’t know because our media is garbage and most media people know nothing, but the federal disaster response to Katrina was amazing. Huge numbers of personnel and vast quantities of supplies poured into the stricken area in an incredibly short time. The incompetence came from – shocker – the Democrat leadership locally, but the media hung it around George W. Bush’s gentlemanly neck. And because he was too gentlemanly to cry “Bull Schiff!,” most everyone thinks what was a logistical miracle was a clusterfark.
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The media is aching, yearning, begging for the chance to do the same thing to Trump.
And the stage is being set to do that. China is going nuts. The numbers of cases coming into the U.S. are growing. People are confused. The stock market is pitching and heaving. And the impeachment circus is going to end with the Democrats’ humiliation soon, meaning suddenly the media will soon need a new shiny object to chase.
Coronavirus is that shiny object. The media will not be honest or accurate or fair. It will lie, cheat, and give voice to leftist leakers with agendas. That’s why Trump needs to go around the media, straight to us.
Trump needs to go on the air, to the American people, and lay out the situation. Then Team Trump needs to step up the game by arm-twisting the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) into talking to us, at length, in detail. Get those science nerds in their lab coats out there, in front of the camera, every day, bombarding us with info. Talk our ears off.
The current lack of information is an invitation for the void to be filled with nonsense and lies designed to undermine the presidency – sadly, the media cares nothing about the infection risk and everything about its weird obsession with undoing the 2016 election. There is already a plan – the CDC is on this – but that plan has not been communicated to the people. The people are worried – they’ll be very, very worried when the media pumps up the threat.
If the president assures the citizenry that he understands this is a priority and that he is vectoring in America’s best scientists to respond, that not only foils the cheesy partisan political attack that is coming. It helps the actual defeat of this potential epidemic. Instead of inspiring panic, the presentation of the Administration as having this crisis well in hand will serve to calm fears as well as tell people what to do.
Do you know what you should do? I’m not sure I do. And the information has been so sketchy that right now most of us don’t know the Coronavirus from the Dos Equis virus, the most interesting flu in the world.
Pummel the people with information. Make those eggheads do briefings every day. Get a soothing one who can communicate to be the face of the CDC. And Hugh Hewitt has another good point – no one is telling us how the disease got here, what flights, what airports. Get that out there. People want to know if a carrier was in their mall or school or whatever. And explain why the hell you can still gobble a bat, jump on a plane, and fly to America? Why haven’t we limited or banned flights? Are we screening passengers? How? We need to know.
Trust us with the information and we will trust the Administration.
This is not just a public health crisis – it’s a political fight too. Sorry, but that’s the truth, and Trump is under no obligation to allow himself to be lied about as W. was. Luckily, though, Trump is a master communicator – plus, he’ll fight back.
And stop eating bats, people.
Editor's Note: Did you know that on Wednesday mornings there's a BONUS KURT column that he writes just for VIP members? And by subscribing, you get access to his super-secret direct email.
There’s a really ugly potential pandemic in my novel Wildfire. America has split into red and blue halves, and all sorts of stuff happens – including gratuitous liberal mockery. The newest novel is Collapse, but also check it out along with the other entries in the series, People's Republic, and Indian Country. You’ll love the books, which Bill Kristol hailed as “appalling.”
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